When I visited Sadogashima, I noticed lots of plushies and cute merchandise of this beautiful white bird. I saw it all over Ryotsu Port and gift stores all over the island. That’s because Sadogashima took the huge responsibility of giving these wonderful birds a home.
This iconic bird, lovingly called Toki, or scientifically known as Nipponia Nippon, is the Japanese Crested Ibis with its distinct red facial features and black beak. There are different kinds of Toki as well. You should see the black one! I personally love them. If you want to learn more about these birds, I recommend visiting the Toki Forest Park located around 15 mins away from the Ryotsu Port accessible by bus or by car. They have been working hard in breeding these amazing birds and also educating the public.
Once you enter the Toki park, you will see a path with stones with Toki paintings on them. I’m really happy that even the children in the community are supporting this cause in any way they can. The art on all the stones is super cute!
Now why are people working hard on protecting the Toki bird specifically on this island?
From what I’ve learned from visiting the Toki park, the wild Toki birds have gone extinct due to many reasons. Overhunting, loss of habitat are a few causes and people just didn’t understand these birds enough thinking that Toki birds were a menace to farmlands.
However, through a pair of Toki birds donated to Japan from China, it was a chance to revive these majestic birds again in Japan. It was in Sadogashima where they built the perfect place for them, carefully breeding the Toki birds and slowly releasing them into the wild. With the help of researchers and the community, it was possible to slowly increase the population of Toki in the island.
Its important to learn more about these birds, to help create a better environment for them to live in. Because they love to roam around the rice fields, farmers often drove them away to protect their crops. Researching more about these creatures showed that they would eat snails, frogs and grasshoppers (etc.) found in the rice fields. They’re pretty much harmless to humans and to the crops as well! Educating the community, both children and adults, is a crucial step towards co-existing with these birds.
It is also possible to observe wild Toki birds in Sadogashima, and there are a few places in the island where you can spot them (If you’re lucky!). They’re afraid of people so if they sense you’re around, they’ll probably fly away. There is a place called the Toki Terrace where an observation deck was built to observe the Toki that was re-introduced to the wild.
I really look forward to the day where more of these beautiful birds fly in the skies of not only Sadogashima but also in the Honshu mainland.